


Guilt

by Jay Trent (Bluewolf458)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: AU, M/M, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Jay%20Trent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A body has been found...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilt

He stared at the newspaper headline, his head empty but for the one thought that kept bouncing around inside a mind suddenly oblivious of everything else.

It couldn't be over... could it? The long period of uncertainty when he never knew if today would be the day when the police turned up at his door, asking...

He reread the article carefully.

Yes. It was over. Finally it was over. The incident that had haunted him for so long... the man whose dead face had haunted him for so many years... the guilt that had never let him rest.

The man he had loved.

The man he had killed.

The man he had buried in a shallow, unmarked grave desperately shovelled out of the soft mud of a marshy field, the evidence of his crime hastily hidden in ground that appeared to be completely useless, ground that flooded every time there was heavy rain.

It had to be his dead love. There couldn't be another body hidden there for an innocent builder to find as he dug the foundations for a new house.

And what a hell of a place for someone to choose to build a house!

Guilt - it had dogged his footsteps for years. He had been tempted more than once to go to the police and confess his crime, but the realisation that even confession would do nothing to ease his guilt, and that life in prison, still haunted by that guilt, would be even more unbearable than guilt-ridden freedom had always stopped him.

At least now his victim would get a proper burial... in a graveyard, certainly. There were no relatives to see to it, after all - at least, none that he knew of.

He put down the newspaper and deliberately thought back over the deadly incident of nearly ten years previously; the incident that had destroyed two lives.

***

They had been in their early thirties when they met and fell in love. They had sworn it was for ever - but 'for ever' had not lasted much longer than a year.

 _His_ love had never faltered, but his lover had become restless. It had taken him a while to see that, and even longer to realise why.

 _He_ was happy, content with a settled life and a 9 - 5 job, a lover sharing his house, all the trappings of what he believed was a committed relationship, as near a marriage as two gay men could have. But his lover... His lover had led a restless life, never staying long in one place, his passport full, stamped with names from all over the exotic world as well as a few more mundane places like France and Spain - the months they had spent together the longest he had ever stayed in England since he was eighteen. He had seemed content to settle down, and for a while that might even have been true...

But his feet were becoming itchy again.

Once he had realised what was wrong and broached the subject, they had discussed the situation. He was happy where he was, had no wish to journey abroad; his lover, on the other hand, liked variety. Eventually they had reached a compromise. It had nearly torn his heart in two, but he had gritted his teeth and given his lover the space he somewhat shamefacedly admitted he needed. Pasting a false but apparently cheerful smile on his face, he had waved goodbye at the airport gate as his lover left for a three-month tour of America; and then he went home to an empty house and an emptier bed.

Three months later he welcomed his lover back. The sex that night was marvellous, both men happy to be together again. 

But the restlessness struck again some ten months later, and again he waved his lover off and eventually, after four months, welcomed him back.

Two months after that the restlessness hit again, but this time it took a different form. His lover's eyes had strayed to someone else. It wasn't important, his lover insisted. It was nothing more than a fling, just sex; his emotions were completely untouched by it, and he was being really careful, safe sex the order of the day. His love for his partner was unabated, but he was a man who liked variety. He had tried, but monogamy wasn't working for him.

In anguish he had hit out... not even realising that he still held the screwdriver he had been using to put up the brackets for a shelf. The long blade slid between ribs and penetrated his lover's heart. By the time he realised what had happened it was far too late to call for help. His lover was dead.

As dusk fell, he had somehow managed to carry the body out to his car. He took it to a marshy field some miles away, and buried it. Then he went home and carefully cleaned up the blood, went through his lover's things and burned the passport.

When asked, he claimed that his friend was away again on holiday. The man's new 'partner' wasn't even interested enough to come and ask about him; it proved that what he had said was the truth, it had indeed been a one night stand, with no emotions involved.

He moved soon after that, going to a neighborhood where he wasn't known, where nobody would ask him about his house mate.

The man he still loved.

The man he would always love.

And now it was over. The body had been found. It would only be a matter of time before the police came looking for him.

He thought desperately. He could claim that the man had walked out on him, gone on holiday again. That he had moved because he had been deserted once too often. They couldn't prove anything, could they?

Perhaps, though, perhaps they could. Could they prove that there had been no ticket bought around the time the dead man disappeared?

He realised that he had always half hoped that his victim would be found, would one day get a proper burial And now...

No. He deserved punishment. He needed to be punished. He just did not want to suffer this unending guilt in prison.

It didn't take long to make his preparations... A quick note, confessing... and then...

His blood spurting from severed arteries, Ray Doyle smiled as his eyes closed in death.

Bodie was finally avenged.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally do death stories, but I was in a particularly bad mood when I wrote this one. I'd reached Glasgow on an overnight bus; it was about 4.30 am, there were already people waiting and over the next two and a half hours more and more buses arrived, offloading more and more people to wait for their connection - but the waiting rooms were closed, as were the toilets, the only seats available were in an outside, draughty, only semi-enclosed area, it was freezing...
> 
> I've never travelled by long-distance bus since.


End file.
